A dear friend is going through a tough time. A relative refuses to move to an assisted living facility despite her failing health and forgetfulness. The relative had once been a professional seamstress whose collection included hundreds upon hundreds of old sewing patterns. These were recently given to me. I found homes for some of them. I kept some of them. I cut out the figures on lots of them. These were laminated and I used some of them to start this mandala.
Stitching through the lamination was easy but require a strong but very thin thread. I had to cover up their feet because not all the figures were the same height! I positioned them, however, with their heads along the same line ... right inside a ring of coral-colored buttons.
Also hiding the longer feet and obscuring the shorter ones is the ring of lavender buttons that were stitched along the edge of a yellow child's 45 record. In the picture above, the red isn't really obvious but its there! I drilled holes to line up with the holes in the porcelain plate ... all except for the one hole in the middle. Yes! I drilled another hole through a piece of porcelain. It was needed in order to attach the blue ashtray, yellow lid, and the shank button.
Yet, as accomplished as I feel about drilling that hole, the thing that I'm most pleased about it the chiffon scarf. All of my other Found Object Mandalas have a layer of tulle/netting over the quilt to protect the fragile seams and threadbare areas. For some reason, I remembered having a stash of very sheer chiffon scarves. In the past, strips of chiffon were fused over my Stained Glass and In Box creations but production of these things was discontinued a couple years ago. I had to switch to strips of netting/tulle. Very few people see this netting/tulle ... but when using the chiffon scarf, I can't even see it! The scarves are 27" x 27". I plan on using more of them!
